Gulf Hurricanes Are Latest Kink in the Oil Chain

Standing 60 feet above sea level on this oil platform 130 miles southeast of New Orleans, Rab Bruce pointed to where the huge wave slammed into a tangle of grated steel and multicolor pipes.

“I was just in shock at the damage,” said Mr. Bruce, a longtime field coordinator on Chevron’s Petronius deepwater platform, which was hit by a 90-foot wave during Hurricane Ivan last September. “I had never seen anything like this. Everything was busted, dangling and messed up.”

Today, with oil prices hitting records and petroleum producers stretched to the limit to meet greater demand from not just the United States but from China, India and other developing countries as well, oil producers worry that hurricanes are as much a risk to a global shortfall in supplies as pipelines blowing up in Iraq or oil workers going on strike in Venezuela.

And with the margin of error so tight, even a temporary disruption of the deepwater platforms, rigs and sub-sea pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico – a region that pumps one-quarter of American oil production – could create big problems for energy producers and consumers alike.

New York Times